Have you ever done something out of the ordinary and thought to yourself, “I bet I’m the only person in the world who’s ever done that?” There’s no way to know how true that is for any given task, but it’s also a perfectly reasonable thought. After all, someone always has to be the first, and sometimes the only, person to do literally anything that can or will ever be done. As it happens, sometimes these historic feats are remembered a little more than others. Like these 10 accomplishments that have never been repeated. At least not yet…
10. Andre Geim received the Nobel and Ig Nobel Prizes.
In the world of Alfred Nobel Nobel Prize was established to honour "those who during the preceding year have contributed most to the benefit of humanity." They are awarded in a number of scientific fields as well as in the humanities.
The Ig Nobel Prizes, on the other hand, are designed to reward achievements in something bizarre or trivial that nonetheless requires extensive research and hard work. The two awards rarely intersect in real life, but they once did in the form of Andre Geim, the only person to receive one of them .
In 2010, Geim received the Nobel Prize in Physics for " innovative "working with graphene. His work involved isolating individual layers of graphite, which could have future applications in how we build almost infinite things, given the strength of graphene.
Ten years earlier, Geim also received an Ig Nobel Prize for levitation of a frog Of course, his work wasn't just about flying frogs, and it focused mainly on something called diamagnetism. Magnetic fields can hold diamagnetic materials by repelling them if they're strong enough. Since water is diamagnetic, if you put a frog in water and hit it with a magnetic field, the frog will float. And that's how you get an Ig Nobel Prize.
9. Roger Sherman signed the four main founding documents of the United States
When people refer to America's Founding Fathers, they usually mean people like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. However, they should probably be talking about Roger Sherman, since he was the most fundamental of the fathers. That is, he was the only one to sign the four most important documents associated with the country's founding.
While some may have signed the Declaration of Independence or even the Constitution, Sherman signed both of which, together with the Articles of Confederation and Continental Association, also known as the Charters.
The real man in town, Sherman became a lawyer , when another lawyer told him he should just start practicing law, then a judge, then a Supreme Court justice in Connecticut, and politics followed. He was said to be admired by many of the other Founding Fathers, and his life was very much about the nation and defining it.
8. John Paul Scott - The only confirmed escape from Alcatraz
Alcatraz will go down in history as one of the most infamous prisons. It housed some of the country's most notorious criminals, but it was even more famous for its inescapability. People tried, of course, and some were never seen again. But only one man ever climbed off the Rock and lived to tell the tale.
Several attempts came close, such as when John Giles used a stolen uniform to board a boat. Unfortunately, instead of San Francisco, he went to Angel Island. The famous story "Escape from Alcatraz" tells of the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris' attempt to escape the island, but they are believed to have drowned.
The only person officially recognized as having set foot in San Francisco since escaping from Alcatraz is John Paul Scott, who managed to escape in 1962. He came ashore near the Golden Gate Bridge, exhausted and nearly dead, where he was immediately captured and returned to prison. No one said he escaped for long, but he did.
7. Katie Sullivan traveled to the deepest place in the sea and into space
They say life has its ups and downs, but only Kathy Sullivan can claim to have learned this truth like no one else in history. Kathy has been higher and lower than any other person, having been in space as an astronaut and in the depths of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean.
In fact, Sullivan was the first woman in history to walk in space, and that was still in 1984 As of 2021, 72 women have been in space. However, in 2020, Sullivan upped the ante on exploring the outer limits when she traveled seven miles below the sea surface in Challenger Deep She was also the first woman to complete this task.
As for why Sullivan is pushing the boundaries of research, it’s a matter of understanding. Sullivan said she wants to “understand the world around us as best as possible.”
6. Harold Russell won two Oscars for the same role.
Few people know the work of Harold Russell these days. The actor and World War II veteran died in 2002, and he had only five acting credits to his credit. Notably, one of them was a role in the film " "The best years of our lives" in 1946, for which Russell won not one, but two Academy Awards, making him the only actor to accomplish this feat.
Obviously, many other actors have won multiple acting awards in the past. Some people have won multiple awards for the same film if they also wrote or directed the film they star in. But none of that was the case with Russell. He won two acting awards for the same role in the same film.
The first award was for Best Supporting Actor, an award that is still familiar to viewers. But with the second award, things got a little unusual. He was awarded this honorary awards for "providing assistance and comfort to disabled veterans through cinema."
5. Peter Siebold is the only person in history to survive a spaceship crash.
Anyone who survives a deadly disaster is lucky, most people would agree. Whether it's a tornado, a sinking ship, a fire, or something equally harrowing, escaping with your life can feel like a miracle. Peter Siebold knows this better than most. He's the only person in the world who fell from space and lived to tell about it.
Siebold was a test pilot for the Virgin Galactic spacecraft that crashed at about 50,000 feet in the air. His seat ejected and fell about 30,000 feet at nearly 200 kilometers per hour before his parachute opened, giving him another 20,000 feet before he hit the ground and lived to tell the tale.
Unfortunately, Siebold's co-pilot did not survive the incident, and Siebold himself actually lost consciousness during the fall, but he had enough time to recover and even give people a thumbs up that he was okay.
4. Marie Curie is the only person to have received the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
We've already seen Andre Geim's impressive achievements in both the Nobel and Ig Nobel Prizes, but he said nothing about Marie Curie, who remains the only person to have won a Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields.
Her first prize was received in 1903 , when both Curie and her husband were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work with radiation. This is perhaps what she is best known for, and why the curie is a unit of measurement for the intensity of radiation. But it was not the only thing she focused on in her scientific career.
In 1911, Curie was awarded a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry , for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium.
3. Arrichion won Olympic gold after his death
As unlikely as it may sound, a number of politicians won an election despite being dead. So it's rare, but not exactly unique. However, there are a few other rare accomplishments that the dead have accomplished, and perhaps one of the most remarkable was when the ancient Greek athlete Arrhichion won an Olympic event despite dying during the match.
Arrichion was a pankratiast, meaning he played pankration, a kind of brutal old-school MMA combat sport that mixed boxing and wrestling and was known to end in death. So how did this man win and also die?
As the story goes, Arrichion had won the previous two Olympics. In his third championship bout, his opponent choked him and was slowly but surely killing the man. To fight back, Arrichion broke a man's ankle , forcing him to abandon the capture. The maneuver tipped the battle in Arricion's favor, but the damage had already been done. He passed away from the injuries he received, despite winning the match.
2. Adam Rainer was a dwarf and a giant
Medically, dwarfism is defined as a condition that limits a person's height to approximately 4 feet 10 inches. It can be caused by several other conditions, but the main symptom most of us associate with it is short stature. Acromegaly, also known as gigantism , would in many ways be the opposite condition. Those affected can grow to extraordinary heights, even approaching eight feet. However, it tends to manifest itself later in life, in adolescence and even early adulthood.
Since both dwarfism and gigantism are different conditions, you might wonder if it is possible for a person to somehow suffer from both, and how that could even work. Well, yes. Adam Rainer had both, and it was all very unusual and probably quite painful for the young man.
Rainier was 4ft 8in tall at age 19 . Despite his short stature, he was also said to have unusually large hands and feet. For example, he wore size 10 shoes. Three years later, he was a size 20.
By age 21, Rainier's growth had become noticeable. Ten years later, he would reach 7 feet 1 inch. A tumor on his pituitary gland caused acromegaly, resulting in accelerated growth, as well as a curved spine, large lips, hands, feet, and forehead. He was said to have been about 7 feet 8 inches when he died at age 51.
It is worth noting that most of the stories about Rainier include photographs that are not of Rainier at all. The most frequently included images are of a man named Baptiste Hugo , who was also a giant, but was never a dwarf.
1. Gerald Ford was never elected vice president or president.
When it comes to "official" rankings of US presidents, Gerald Ford doesn't stand out. He's not the best, he's not the worst. In one poll, he took 28th place , which is about as middle of the pack as you can get. But at the very least, Gerald Ford deserves recognition for his astonishing and unrivaled achievements in American politics. He is the only person ever to achieve the position vice president and then president, because he was never elected to any office by anyone.
Ford was the House Minority Leader in 1973, at the height of the Watergate scandal, when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from office after being convicted of tax evasion and bribery. President Nixon then nominated Ford to be his vice president.
Less than a year later, Nixon himself was resigning, which meant Ford had just been promoted. He served with 1974 to 1976 and is mostly known for pardoning Nixon for his crimes and doing nothing else.
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